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imagine a world where blindness and
deafness can be reversed
or never forgetting a name face or date
being able to augment the brainpower
we're born with to offload memories and
correct human melodies
that's what elon musk and the team at
neurolink are setting out to do but is
this the future of humanity or
just a dream let's take a closer look at
neural link
i'm matt farrell welcome to undecided
[Music]
so what is neuralink well it's a company
that's focused on building out a type of
brain computer interface or bci
which can have many different names and
classifications but it all boils down to
building an interface that can read and
interpret the signals
given off by the neurons firing away in
our brains this type of research goes
all the way back to 1924 when hans
berger a german psychiatrist used
electroencephalography or eeg
to record human brain activity it's a
process that uses electrodes to measure
the electrical activity of the brain
the first tests were probably a little
uncomfortable given that he inserted
wires under the patient's scalp to make
the recording
thankfully these were later replaced by
attaching silver foils to the outside of
the head
but imagine how those first patients
felt when they found that bed out
it wasn't until 1973 that the term bci
was coined by ucla professor
jacques vidal in a 1977 experiment he
was able to use an eeg to control an
object on a computer screen and move it
around a maze
since that time there have been quite a
few different approaches and
advancements made in how to read signals
from the brain
like being able to map motor cortex
neurons to control a robotic arm which
is something that was demonstrated in
the 1980s with rhesus macaque monkeys
and in some late 1990s research at the
university of california berkeley they
were able to reproduce images
seen by cats by deciphering their neuron
activity
in the early 2000s 16 patients received
a second generation visual cortex
electrode implant
to partially restore the ability to
seize shades of light
so you can start to see why so many
people are excited by bci research
there are three basic forms of bci
invasive
partially invasive and non-invasive the
electrode implants that were attached to
the visual cortex would be considered
invasive partially invasive is when an
implant is placed inside the skull but
rests outside the brain and doesn't
intrude into it
and something like an eeg that attaches
to the outside of the scalp is
non-invasive
on that scale neural link would be
considered invasive
but how does it work well it all starts
with neural links
link which is a sealed device about
millimeters in diameter
and eight millimeters tall inside is a
little computer that processes
stimulates and transmits neural signals
extending from the coin-shaped link
are a series of neural threads with
multiple probes and electrodes
which are carefully threaded into the
brain this invasive approach can take a
far more accurate reading of brain
activity than a non-invasive approach
there's an analogy that constantly comes
up around this it's like a stadium where
each seat is a neuron firing off and
making noise
an eeg is like being outside the stadium
and trying to understand what's going on
with the game inside
you can only really tell if a team
scored or something exciting happened
but if you move inside the stadium the
voices become clearer and you can start
to make more sense of the play-by-play
move even closer and you eventually can
ask a specific neuron what they think of
the game
built into the neural link system is the
ability to track things like orientation
temperature and pressure it's able to
track a lot of the same things that your
phone and smartwatch can do
or as elon put it it's more complicated
than this but it's
in a lot of ways it's kind of like a
fitbit in your skull with tiny wires
the rationale behind collecting all this
extra data beyond just what the neurons
are doing
is that combining all of that collected
data will someday unlock the ability to
predict early signs of dangerous
conditions
like a stroke or heart attack now it can
also charge inductively
like your phone or watch so it should be
easy to top off the charge every day
without physical wires needing to be
hooked through the body but it's how
they install the link that's absolutely
amazing
they designed a robot that can complete
the very delicate threading procedure
the incredible small size and detail
work that's needed to be done
is more than a human can pull off
reliably so automated robotics are
necessary to do this quickly and
safely the ultimate goal is an automated
surgery that can happen in less than an
hour and don't worry i won't get graphic
with the actual details of the procedure
i don't like that stuff myself but
entails opening a small flap of your
scalp
drilling a small hole through the skull
threading the electrodes and inserting
the link to fill the hole
after sealing the flap of skin there's
no sign that you've had the procedure
done at all
and during the demonstration they put on
last year they showed a couple of pigs
one with an active neural link and the
other who had one removed
to show how safe it could be the neural
link in the active pig was connected to
the neurons that controlled the snout so
they were playing real-time audio
signals
to represent the data that they were
reading from the firing neurons
so on the screen you can see
uh each each of the spikes from the 1024
electrodes
and and then if you if she yeah she
shuffles around touches this knot in the
ground
or you kind of feed her some food pigs
low food
then uh you can see the neurons um
will fire much more than when you're not
touching this now
they also demonstrated being able to
predict the location of the pig's limbs
by interpreting the neural data that the
link was receiving with pretty high
accuracy
being able to read and understand
someone's intentions for moving a limb
can potentially be applied to restoring
movement to someone with paralysis
but it's not just reading data that
they're focused on they also showed off
that each data channel is capable of
writing or
triggering neurons by giving off an
electrical charge
again this could be used to treat any
number of disorders
the overall presentation was impressive
and showed off their product design
methodology from creating a system
that's safe and easy to install
unnoticeable when you have one and safe
to remove and upgrade later
but this is where i need to emphasize
what neural link is not
but before i get to that i want to touch
on security for a minute
and no i'm not talking about the
security issues of wearing a computer
into your brain which
neural link is taking a lot of
precautions around i'm talking about in
our daily lives
needing to create more and more complex
passwords for the websites and services
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thanks to nordpass and all of you for
supporting the channel
getting back to what neural link is not
it's not a real product yet
it's early days of turning decades of
research into a working consumer product
their initial goal is to use the
technology to help those with paralysis
and injury gain some independence back
being able to think of typing out a
message on your phone to actually have
it
do it think what you want to do on your
computer and it just happens
it's kind of like telepathy this has a
direct link back to the research i
mentioned earlier
being able to help people with visual
auditory or motor control issues is the
ultimate goal
now neurolink isn't alone in this field
by any stretch there are companies like
paradromix in austin texas
that are also trying to help people with
conditions like paralysis or blindness
or nurble which is a boston-based
startup that's focusing on eeg style
devices to control computer interfaces
with a set of brain-sensing consumer
headphones
and even more direct competitor to
neural link is bios from the uk
which is a similar implant technology to
help enhance and improve
different health conditions the biggest
difference between the other companies
in neuralink is really their approach
and vision
much like every other one of elon's
companies there's a bit of controlled
chaos with how it's
run an engineering focused first
principles thinking
incredible pressure cooker to push the
envelope and delivering on accelerated
timelines reportedly created some
internal strife
especially with some of the people that
were more attuned to the methodical
scientific
research approach after their last
public event there were a few notable
criticisms of the event for overselling
what's possible
the mit technology review published an
article that called it neuroscience
theater since none of what they saw
proposed for the future is doable yet
and what neuralink did show wasn't
anything new or groundbreaking in the
realm of bci research
while the critiques weren't necessarily
wrong many of them
missed some of the nuances of the
presentation it was stated multiple
times in the presentation that this was
a recruiting tool
for more researchers doctors and
engineers getting those who want to be
part of building the future excited to
join the team
it wasn't meant as a demo for the public
to get excited about getting one
implanted into their heads tomorrow
elon also made comparisons to other
consumer products
like the fact that the neural link has
over 100 times more data channels
than the next best consumer device
going from research to product is a huge
leap
especially in the medical field we're so
we're still years away if not
decades away from more of the
aspirational things they talked about
what neuralink is doing trying to bring
a product to market from the lab
is a herculean task on the flip side
there were also voices that were very
impressed
by the presentation i am amazed by the
rapid progress in the device
architecture to enable seamless
prototype and pigs
the best part was seeing the prediction
of movement versus actual movement
in terms of the technology 1024 channels
is not that impressive these days
but the electronics to relay them
wirelessly is state of the art
and the robotic implementation is nice
but this is where i start to get a
little conflicted
and i'm really looking forward to seeing
what you all say about it in the
comments because
i am torn i get so excited to see what
we as a species are capable of when we
put our minds to it
the fact that we're at the very
beginning of the journey towards mapping
the human brain
and potentially being able to cure
diseases and disabilities is
awe-inspiring neuralink may not be
revolutionizing specific bci research
yet
but they're tackling the engineering
feat of making it a reality
but some of what could be a potential
down the road is as terrifying
as it is amazing what will it mean if we
can actually offload memories
or load memories that are not even our
own
i got flashbacks to the movie strange
days with angela bassett and ralph finds
where there's a black market for memory
trading and the line between what's real
and what's not
like a fabricated memory really starts
to be blurred
like i said this technology amazes and
terrifies me
all at the same time for what it could
mean decades down the road
it doesn't help when i hear that
facebook is working on bci technology
too
yeah i don't want facebook anywhere near
my neurons
if we don't act responsibly and
ethically today with the development of
this technology and put proper
guidelines and controls in place
we're creating ripples into the future
that could turn into damaging waves or
tsunamis
at the very least i mean this is
obviously sounding increasingly like a
black mirror episode
but yeah essentially if you have a whole
rain interface everything that's encoded
in memory you could
uh you could upload you could basically
store your memories um as a backup and
ultimately you could
potentially download them into a new
body or into a robot buddy
the future's going to be weird bringing
back closer to today there's so much
amazing potential for what neural link
is working on
i'm looking forward to seeing and
hearing future updates from the company
as well as their competitors
so what do you think of neuralink would
you get one
jump in the comments and let me know if
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thanks for watching i'll see you in the
next one